OWINO Fredrick

Web2.0 Training session held in Nairobi on 21 August 2009

2009-09-09T02:34:00.000-07:00

This learning activity was held as a pre-conference event prior to the 2nd world congress of agroforestry held at the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), United Nations Avenue in Nairobi. The event took place on Friday, 21st August for the English speaking participants and on the subsequent day our French speaking counterparts went through the same.

PREAMBLE.
Information technology in general and internet revolution in particular are taking place at a rather breathtaking pace. A vast majority of IT practitioners are girding their loins never to be caught unawares by the revolution and hence be rendered redundant or ineffective in their professions by the scores of changes and new products being churned out on daily basis. One such area that has seen unprecedented rise and change in the practice of IT is the web2.0 field of IT. It is in this vein that organizations such as CTA and their vast network of collaborators and partners, with a keen interest in sharing knowledge to improve rural livelihoods have taken a trail blazing role in disseminating to promote the use of such cheap conveyance means.
What is web2.0? A great deal of definitions have been put forward by major IT practitioners as pertaining to web2.0 and its capabilities. To mention but a few, some of the definitions and descriptions put forth and how they differ from the conventional web practice, include but not limited to:
● Participatory web
● user generated and user centred web
● Data driven web
● Read/write web because as well as viewing websites, anyone with internet access can create
their own content and tailor pages to suit their own particular needs
● Tim O'Reilly, credited with the coining of the term web2.0 has defined thus: The business
revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as the platform.
Notwithstanding the aforementioned definitions, a lot of opinion tend to coalesce at the following
definition, which may therefore be deemed as standardized one. It goes thus:
Web2.0 are the free or low cost interactive web applications that are increasingly available to the
public. These innovative services allow individuals and organizations to work together in creating,
sharing, collaborate on and publish digital information on the internet. They were created for and
thrives on the the participation of people and empowerment of users.
Web2.0 applications Examples.
These applications include but not limited to the following:
Blogging
Wikis and social networks
Tagging
Feeds
Mash-ups
Closely related to the application is the fact that they inter marry with the following so as to give out
result:
People – They are people driven
Access – anyone with access to the internet can easily use them unhindered.
Participation – They rely heavily on participation of people/groups of people/collaborators
Content – owned by groups as opposed to privately hosted sites where content is private.
Impact – Has resulted into wider usage of internet, freely available stuff, etc
The interrelationship between the applications and the approaches has been pictorially demonstrated by some web2.0for Dev practitioners – Jon Corbet- into the following two hand image.(see Fig 2.0)
Differences. Apparently, the conventional web paradigm put a lot of emphasis on issues like platform dependence, i.e languages of programming operating systems supported, whereas here, one uses these applications without even attempting to know their platforms.
Conventional web has strict ownership structure where only particular individuals can upload,
moderate content in analogy with this where anyone with access can create own profiles, load, discuss and generally participate in discussions unhindered by anyone.
Short Review.
Having gone through the training with lots of enthusiasm, and having been tasked with ensuring
knowledge transfer to colleagues, further, having been tasked with ensuring institution of mechanisms that will allow immediate use of the learnt applications of intrinsic interest to us, I have decided to document as many as possible of the learnt applications. This will by and large serve to kill two birds with one stone. First, it will serve to entrench the use of the relevant applications deep into my mnemonic devices and secondly, as Seth Godin once observed, “Ideas that spread through groups of people are more powerful than those delivered at an individual”, this will be particularly true as I will seek gain more experience as I pass through the knowledge.
Therefore, in my quest to accomplish the above, and for the keeps sake, it is my pleasure to put down the lessons as I understood them, so that they will be subject to scrutiny by peers who attended the training and criticism from those entrenched in the practice.
The areas that caught my attention and attracted my interest are as follows..put simply, the capabilities
of the web2.0 tools. One such capability was collaboration via Google Documents....

This article will continue to be published in bits. for more information, email the author at owino.rudesat@africaonline.co.ke.

Life made a lot easier..

2009-08-06T02:07:00.000-07:00

Microsoft has announced its latest ergonomic peripheral for computer users worldwide - the Wireless Comfort Desktop 5000. that keyboard and mouse combo will find the former featuring a Comfort Curve layout that encourages natural wrist posture with a slight six-degree curve, while the included mouse comes with BlueTrack technology to invent certain that most surfaces can be used with the mouse, giving greater flexibility in where you want to work. Other design elements include low-profile quiet touch keys and rubber grips on both sides of the included ambidextrous Wireless Mouse 5000. Expect to pick up Wireless Comfort Desktop 5000 later that month for $79.95.

Life couldnt be better!!!

2009-08-06T01:32:00.000-07:00

Chameleon Radio sings in shower

Now here’s one chameleon that isn’t scared of getting its feet wet - the Chameleon Radio that tunes in to FM waves, bringing whatever songs or radio programs from the local airwaves right into the comfort of your bathroom as you relax under the shower after a lengthy, hard day at work. To produce things more interesting, the Chameleon FM is able to change color in rhythm with the music, adding a touch of personality to its namesake. £13 sounds a decent decent exchange for something like that in your home.

Something for us who love reading!!!

2009-07-17T00:57:00.000-07:00

Book-Sensitive Reading Lamp

Now isn’t that an view - the Book-sensitive Reading Lamp that was designed by French designers Jun Yasumoto, Alban Le Henry, Olivier Pigasse and Vincent Vandenbrouck. By its looks alone, you can pretty much tell how to use it - the lamp will turn itself off whenever you place a book on it (on the page where you last stopped, of course), turning on whenever you remove the book. Hopefully that is one concept that will assemble its way to the real world soon - we would love to get our hands on something strange like that.

Huh!! This is how the next level of job application may look like!

2009-07-14T23:52:00.000-07:00

250 Twitter followers called for for social media job at Best Buy

You’re reading that right, applicants for the “senior manager - emerging media marketing” position at Best Buy were asked to have a Bachelors degree, two years of mobile media experience and at least 250 Twitter followers.

Best Buy did find someone that fits the profile, so there’s no need to send your resume now. It’s interesting to see that there was no specific requirement for Facebook or other social networks - that tells you how much mindshare Twitter has acquired recently. Expect more companies to follow Best Buy’s example

Courtesy:technology today!!

Me,poetry and myself.one of my favourites!!!

2009-07-08T02:33:00.000-07:00

'if' by rudyard kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master,
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

Necessity is indeed the mother of inventions

2009-07-08T02:21:00.000-07:00

Semi-permanent floating homes may be the future in Coastal areas.

The Netherlands, which for years has fought the encroaching ocean, is now considering how to embrace the waters in future city design, Reuters reports.

A number of prototypes for floating cities are being considered. Indeed, the Netherlands may well become a laboratory for such thinking.

A goal is to be able to remove or relocate a building without harming the surrounding environment; the ultimate in sustainability.

Watch Reuters video here.

Oooops! Just complete 7 Telentre strategies

2009-07-07T06:25:00.000-07:00

This is just to illustrate on the already posted article below on 7 strategies to manage and run a telentre.I feel the diagram was a bit misbehaving.Enjoy

The world becomes a village : implications of social networks

2009-07-07T06:10:00.001-07:00

The world becomes a village Ã¢ÂÂ implications of social networks

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7 Rules to Guide in Telecentre creation.

2009-07-07T05:52:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone,
Many of you have discovered or learned about the Magic Number 7.
I'm sure you've heard of "7 Habits of Highly Effective People."
Hei, there are 7 days in a week
Oh ya, there are "7 Deadly Sins" ... Woooo...!
The soft drink "7Up" became popular after changing its name from "Bib-label Lithiate Lemon-Lime Soda.' Ummm ... Ya. No wonder...
Haiiiii .... yattt...!! "The 7 Samurai" of Akira Kurosawa ... and then adapted as "The Magnificent 7" of John Sturges with the Bang...bang...bang...!
There are "7 Wonders of the World."
Now, wait a minute here! EXCUSE Me...! There are gazillions wonders in this world...
But, we chose to have only 7 Wonders of the World... ?

"The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information" by George A Miller is one of the most highly cited paper.
It basically says that our brain has an excellent remembering capacity of 7 items or in 7 chunks.
Hmmm... May be that's why we only have 7 Wonders of the World..
ENOUGH ABOUT NUMBER 7.....

So, how about the Magic number 7 for Telecentre ?
Let me start with this question:
"What are the 7 Strategies for Building Successful Telecentres ?"

What are the 7 items... the 7 chunks .... of strategies?
There are gazillion things on telecentre items/issues out there and we can make gazillions "dish" from it.
So, anyway we'll be writing here what we think as the 7 Strategies. But, we would welcome your opinion on what you think they are.
What we consider important may not be important to you and vice versa. The way we "chunk" things may also be different. We have many ways of "cooking" telecentre dish.
So, here they are according to my perception, as of now, the 7 Strategies for Building Successful Telecentres.

Glad to seare movind albeit at snails speed on the ICT highway

2009-07-07T05:31:00.001-07:00

The Global Information Technology Report 2008-2009

Denmark and Sweden once again lead the rankings of The Global Information Technology Report 2008-2009, released for the eighth consecutive year by the World Economic Forum out of 134 countries. The United States follows suit at third followed by Singapore (4), Switzerland (5) and the other Nordic countries together with the Netherlands and Canada complete the top 10.

In Africa, Tunisia remains the leader of the thirty countries of the continent followed by Mauritius (51), South Africa (52), Egypt(76), Botswana(77), Senegal(80), Morocco(86), Nigeria(90), Gambia(91), Namibia(92), Kenya(97), Libya (101), Zambia (102), Ghana(103), Mali(107), Algeria(108), Mauritania (109), Malawi (110), Côte d'Ivoire(111), Madagascar(112), Burkina Faso(113), Lesotho(118), Tanzania(119), Uganda(120), Benin(121), Cameroon(123), Mozambique(124), Ethiopia(129), Burundi(131), Zimbabwe(132), and Chad(134) in the classification of the "Networked Readiness Index 2008-2009 ".

2009-06-18T06:44:00.000-07:00

The only time anyone has ever gotten into serious trouble was when he decided he could do nothing about something.

—L. Ron Hubbard
(Dianetics 55!)

Web2forDev: Web 2.0 for Development Gateway

2009-06-18T00:54:00.001-07:00

Web2forDev: Web 2.0 for Development Gateway

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And now,someething to read for us as we loaf around,wonderfull!!

2009-06-15T05:37:00.000-07:00

Book-reading Robot

Great, it seems that us humans are getting lazier and lazier by the moment - that the Ninomiya-kun robot for instance. that 1-meter-tall, 25-kilogram aluminum-framed robot was developed at Waseda University’s knowledge, Production and Systems Research Center (IPSRC), and is able to read out stories from a book, letting dad ditch his bedtime story teller role to his kids as the Ninomiya-kun substitutes dad’s place so that he can continue zapping aliens in the living room on,real loafing.Hu!!

Web 2.0 tools:brand new stuff

2009-06-15T02:07:00.000-07:00

Web 2.0 is Officially the Millionth Phrase in English Language

English language was first time recorded nearly 1,500 years ago and now it registered its millionth word. On June 10, 2009, at 10.22AM the English dictionary was enriched with the phrase Web 2.0 that expresses the next generation of Internet services. It is worth mentioning that a word must be used at least 25,000 times within the national borders and outside the country in order to be officially accepted.

Global Language Monitor (GLM) is an Austin, Texas-based company that cooperatively documents, studies and tracks trends in language usage around the globe in print publications, online news resources, blogs and social media, paying special attention to the English language. It officially recognized Web 2.0 as the millionth word in English language, with 1,000,001st being Financial Tsunami that describes a sudden financial restructuring.

The company selected 15 words in order to complete its calculation that English language would reach the mark of 1,000,000 words. Although the 15 selected words achieved the mark of 25,000 citations worldwide, Web 2.0 was the one chosen to be the millionth word.

John Simpson, chief editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, mentioned that for a long time linguists and lexicographers explained that it is impossible to accurately evaluate the size of English language.

"We find it curious that Web 2.0, a term that was coined in 1999 and has been in broad use since 2004, is being regarded as a new entrant to the language," he said. Web 2.0, which started as a tech jargon, gained its popularity mainly in the last six months. It managed to surpass such words phrases as Jai Ho! and slumdog, which became popular after the film Slumdog Millionaire hit the cinemas worldwide. The exclamation Jai Ho! used widely in India means victory or accomplishment, and slumdog is an offensive term that describes children living in the slums.

The chief word analyst at Global Language Monitor, Paul JJ Payack, said that English language has become so popular around the world that it generates about 14.7 new words each day, which means one new word in every 98 minutes.

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Guys are really getting ahead of the pack

2009-06-15T01:34:00.000-07:00

Latest Invention: Lip-Reading Computers Able to Identify Different Languages

One of the latest inventions created by scientists from the University of East Anglia (UEA) are lip-reading computers that are able to identify different languages.

Scientists managed to come up with lip-reading computers some time earlier but now they created the first computer that can really distinguish different languages. This latest invention could prove to be very useful for people with hearing problems, as well as for law enforcement agencies, and in noisy environments.

The revolutionary research is currently led by Stephen Cox and Jake Newman of UEA's School of Computing Sciences. They will present their latest invention at a major conference that will take place in Taiwan on April 22.

It is worth mentioning that the technology was built up by statistical modeling of the lip movements developed by a team of 23 bilingual and trilingual speakers. The system could distinguish any language with extremely high accuracy. It could identify English, French, German, Arabic, Mandarin, Cantonese, Italian, Polish and Russian, reports the UEA website.

"This is the first scientific confirmation that when people speak different languages, they use different mouth shapes in different sequences," outlined Prof Cox.

"For example, we found frequent 'lip-rounding' among French speakers and more prominent tongue movements among Arabic speakers," he added.

The study was funded by the EPSRC and is a part of a larger project of the University of East Anglia that focuses on automatic lip-reading. Soon scientists will start working on the system closer to an individual's physiology and their way of speaking.

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And now a time to pray!!!!

2009-06-11T00:45:00.001-07:00

Serenity Prayer
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.

The Compass of My life:I try as much as I can to live by this.

2009-05-27T02:26:00.000-07:00

DESIDERATA
Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender,
Be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly, and listen to others -
Even the dull and ignorant, they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons - they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter,
For always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career -
However humble, it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs,
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is.
Many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself.
Especially do not feign affection, neither be cynical about love.
For in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,
It is as perenial as the grass.
Take kindly the council of the years,
Gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune,
But do not distress yourself with imaginings -
Many fears are borne of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe.
No less than the trees and the stars, you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
No doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore, be at peace with God, whatever you conceive him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
Keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be careful. Strive to be happy.

Owino at work

2009-05-27T02:02:00.000-07:00

Live with the Director of CTA: No comment...

2009-05-26T23:35:00.000-07:00

Live with the Director of CTA: No comment...

Welcome Note

2009-05-26T01:19:00.000-07:00

Hello good people out there. Am greatly humbled as I take this opportunity to welcome you to my blog spot.Right from the outset,I must say that I welcome all persons,of divergent views,conflicting shades of opinion and various schools of thought to feel free and comment unreservedly on various issues that will crop up here time and again.Go on write anything,there is no big brother hovering over your shoulder.Finally,Inasmuch as I may disagree with your opinion,I will defend to death your right to make it known.The ball is in your court,so play on!